Fain was dogged by investigation but still decisively beat challenger Rich Boyer, who received just 13% of vote

Read the full article at: www.theguardian.com

Two organizers who helped build the tech worker movement ask why its victories proved so difficult to turn into lasting power.

Read the full article at: jacobin.com

Lets talk about overcoming the odds in a union campaign. Any employer that has ever won has done just that... it's not impossible just requires education and strategic empathy along with a solid legal team and knowledgeable consultant.

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This vote count demonstrates once again that small units are hard for management to educate employees about unions and gain their trust in the short time between an NLRB petition and election.

The theatrics of walking on a boss with a demand to recognize the union is just an exercise to bond the group together and make it difficult for any of them to change their union support later without looking weak and being categorized as a traitor by their co-workers.

The perception of being a traitor and not respected by their co-workers is a very powerful tool used by unions to keep their people in line and is the reason many union members who cross their own picket line quit soon after the contract is resolved, union organizing campaigns as well as labor strikes are filled with psychology tricks to keep union members or potential union members obedient,

The “walk on the boss” action also indicates to me that the management team wasn’t fully aware of the extent of the union activity.

The casino should have expected the organizing campaign to happen sooner or later and been better prepared for the union activity, UNITE HERE also represents around 250 hospitality staff workers at the Blue Chip and the Teamsters would have reached out to them for internal support.

Worker support and trust should never be something that needs to be rushed once union activity or an RC petition is filed, it should be a continues and sincere goal, unions prioritize organizing units based on the weakness of their management teams,

Understanding union organizing targets across the country and in your industry along with actively improving communication policy and supervision skills is vital to retaining a productive union free environment.

https://pslabor.com/

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The NLRA currently imposes no timeline for reaching a first contract. The labor movement’s goal for years has been to legalize a timeline for contract negotiations and forced arbitration if short timeline is not met.

The Faster Labor Contracts Act (H.R.5408) passed in the House of Representatives with bipartisan support on June 9, 2026.

The FLCA would amend the National Labor Relations Act to require employers to bargain with newly organized workers within 10 days of voting to form their union. Establishing a timeline for all parties to negotiate, the legislation provides a path to mediation if no agreement is reached within 90 days and a referral to arbitration to ensure first contracts can be quickly completed.

This constitutes a maximum bargaining period of 120 days – 90 days of bargaining followed by 30 days of mediation – before either party can invoke mandatory arbitration.

High Costs and Risk to Small Businesses, forced contracts could include expensive, long-term obligations such as large pension commitments or costly benefits packages. These mandates could limit hiring, slow growth, or even force companies into bankruptcy if the terms are unworkable, small businesses may lack the resources to absorb such obligations.

I see the potential for bad-faith bargaining where unions would resist coming to an agreement based on the financial realities of the company, to stall or avoid concessions, knowing that arbitration could award them a better deal than they could secure at the table. This would make negotiations more adversarial.

Many unions see the FLCA as a transformative piece of labor reform that could significantly shorten the time between a union vote and a binding contract, while holding employers accountable for timely negotiations but some labor advocates have reacted with alarm to the act, arguing it is a thinly veiled attack on collective bargaining rights, emphasizing that compressing negotiation timelines systematically advantages well-resourced corporations over workers who need time to organize, consult members, and counter complex employer proposals.

There are some unknowns to this bill, for example, based on the current iteration of the legislation, it is not entirely clear who would have to pay for all this. Arbitration can be expensive and the law requires a panel of three arbitrators.

The FLCA is not law yet. It requires Senate passage and the President’s signature before taking effect. However, the bipartisan House vote and the presence of a companion bill with growing Senate support suggest this legislation has strong momentum.

https://lnkd.in/gCgr7KVi

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The Labor movements narrative is always the same, any company that opposes union activity are union busters and anti-worker, this article criticizes companies that hire attorneys and consultants that educate their employees on the realties and limitations of labor unions, not lie to them while union organizers not only obfuscates the truth but also flat out misrepresent the ability of unions to achieve the goals that they are enthusiastically promising them.

Actually one of the Attorneys and consultants’ responsibilities is to prevent the employer from violating workers’ rights under the National Labor Relations Act (NLRB) and I find that a vast majority of employers fight hard to protect their employees’ rights while the unions fight to legally prevent these conversations from occurring, stating that it violated the workers’ rights.
One of the unions objectives is to instigate management violations of the ACT and to create an atmosphere where worker anger and mistrust of management flourish, 101 union organizing is from the start of the worker inoculation process, find ways to discredit the company, attack its moral authority and corporate image.

To make it clear, unions will gladly lead potential and current members into situations without the full facts, during my time as both as a national organizing and strike director I have had exasperated workers come to me asking for answers, one time on a strike into the 2nd year at a food bank with his young child, he asked me when the legal process was going to be over and we can get back to work, I responded that I didn’t know but he better keep his A** on the strike line.

Union officials and many politicians are always stating the awful reasons there need to be changes in the NLRB labor law. I remember when Kate Bronfenbrenner, who is the Director of Labor Education Research at the New York State School of Industrial and Labor Relations at Cornell University published stats on management abuse on union organizers, the last report that I read declared that over a five year period 34 percent of the elections that companies fired employees for union activity, in 57 percent of elections, employers threatened to shut down all or part of their facilities, and in 47 percent, employers threatened to cut wages and benefits. When I was an organizing director, I received many of these surveys from Cornell University and of course we responded that company abuse was responsible for any organizing losses.

This article calls the right of management to educate employees on the realities of union membership a “deliberate assault on a fundamental human right”, I have witnessed many union officials and their supporters attack members who push back on leadership actions or cross a picket line because they need to feed their family to the point of unrestrained brutality, where are their human rights?

https://pslabor.com/

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There are many issues here, Teamsters local 243 notified the National Labor Relations Board that they "officially withdraws and disclaims interest" a union will only withdraw interest if they no longer have the support of their members or the unit is no longer worth the expense and time to do the hard work of obtaining a CBA. if the union truly were dedicated to organizing this national chain, they would have had a better national strategy and structure to address the issues and the concerns of the workers not only at this location but on a national level.  

This union had motivative workers who connected with Labor Notes and Teamsters for a democratic Union (TDU) organization for support and utilized how to organize literature from TDU, they also had on hand support from some Starbucks organizers.

Workers was quoted as saying “the path forward often felt uncertain “We were so focused on unionizing we didn’t really think to ask them for a plan.  None of the Chipotle employees who voted to unionize had ever been a part of a union before, and affiliating with the Teamsters was a crash course in understanding the structure and mechanics of large international unions”. And that workers in the store lost faith that the union had a viable plan to overcome the company's resistance."

I have stated many times that organizers often only tell the targeted organizing workers what they want to hear and don’t prepare them for the hard work it takes to obtain the first contract. That burden is carried by the union staff that is actually at the table.

This is a short-term victory for the company, the unit is still frustrated with management and with about 4,000 restaurants in the US including all company-operated locations and international partner-operated restaurants they are a big target, other national unions as well as the Teamsters are going to continue to target these locations especially with the renewed push by both big labor and grassroots organizations to concentrate on big organizing campaigns, I remember when the first Starbucks was organized, now there are over 11,000 workers at 500 Starbucks locations,125 in 2025.

While there is union activity at this restaurant chain I haven’t seen evidence of a true cohesive strategy or sophisticated well-funded national corporate campaign to date but unions are not going away, and companies don’t have the luxury to ignore union activity, well trained supervision who understands union tactics and how to spot union activity along with a comprehensive communication policy are vital to maintaining a productive union free environment.

https://pslabor.com/

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Interesting events are happening in the banking industry, Wells Fargo has had a lot of union activity, several units have filed for a decertification vote with mixed results. According to the Wells Fargo Workers United-CWA web site there is no ratified contracts signed yet, the first union contract negotiations started in Albuquerque, New Mexico on November 5, 2024, with Wells Fargo management, there are 22 union branches across 14 states that organized, the union is seeking a national contract.

While some credit unions have unionized workforces, unionization at banks has been rare until recently.

The US banking industry was once a very hard target that unions avoided, Beneficial State Bank, serving California, Oregon, and Washington, was the first US bank organized in 2020 was the first bank unionized in 40 years, Beneficial State Bank voluntarily recognized the Communication Workers of America after over 100 of its employees across 13 locations demonstrated majority support for the CWA in three states

Continuing the trend, in January 2022, employees at Genesee Co-Op Federal Credit Union in Rochester, NY unionized. Employees unionized and In January 2023, Lake Michigan Credit Union workers also successfully unionized the Wyoming, Michigan location.

According to the U.S. Department of Labor, only 1.1% of workers in the banking and finance industry are unionized. A 2013 study, it was commissioned by the Committee for Better Banks, a New York based group advocating for the rights of banking and finance employees stated on their site that “mass layoffs, high turnover, lagging pay and benefits, and a lack of transparency as the driving factors spurring banking and finance employees’ interest in unionization, and those concerns have only increased in recent years”. The Committee for Better Banks is affiliated with the Communications Workers of America (“CWA”) union and is part of their strategy to increase their organizing attempts.

Companies no longer have the luxury to ignore union activity, well trained supervision who understands union tactics and how to spot union activity along with a comprehensive communication policy are vital to maintaining a productive union free environment.
https://pslabor.com/

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In this post Bob Carroll explains how to conduct proper & legal conversations concerning union activity to employees. (FOE – Facts, Opinion, Experiences) This information is vital to avoid violating the National Labor Relations Act and getting served with unfair labor practice charges.

https://pslabor.com/

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I came across this article yesterday; it described a typical union organizing campaign but the one statement that caught my attention was the fact that in a 300-employee organizing unit the company was unaware of the union activity until they went public on social media, in the press and filed for a National Labor Relations Board (NLRB)

(“It was important that we had been able to keep our effort secret from the company while collecting cards, because we knew that when we went public, an intense union-busting campaign would descend upon us. And boy, did it ever.”)

As I have stated many times, a breakdown of communication is the biggest cause of future union organizing activity and on occasions can take years to get to the point where an RC petition is filed.

Many unaddressed issues can arise causing workers to feel unappreciated and further erode trust in their management team to the point where employees don’t bring matters of importance to their direct supervisors, preferring to complain to their co-workers, many times out of frustration caused by this inaction of the management team to address their issues or out of fear of retaliation.

Months of organizing activities and the fact that not one worker opened up to a supervisor or anyone on the management team about the organizing campaign tells me everything about the level of communication and trust within the unit. An after the petition communication blitz is helpful but many times it’s just not enough as reflected in the union win rate which was 81.9 percent rate in 2025.

 It’s important to always have an open dialogue with your employees, today’s workplace is more diverse then ever and the days of a one management style that fits all is long gone, managing a Multigenerational workforce is much more complicated with Boomers, Gen X, Millennial and Gen z employees working together.

https://pslabor.com/

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Want to stay union free? How are those "Good Vibes" coming along?

#UnionFree
#UnionAvoidance
#UnionAwareness

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Two years ago, the successful union drive at this plant was expected to spark victories throughout the South. But now, as members vote to make their contract official, momentum has fizzled.

Read the full article at: www.npr.org

This article discusses how the DSA or the Democratic Socialists of America are collaborating with the Teamsters on efforts to pass legislation (The Delivery Protection Act) which would require companies like Amazon, FedEx and others to directly employ drivers in NYC last‑mile delivery facilities and is backed by NYC Mayor Mamdani, the AFL-CIO-affiliated New York City Central Labor Council and a supermajority of city council members.

This law if passed could influence and be a proving ground for last mile national policy and logistics strategy, it could embolden other municipalities and states to adopt comparable measures, creating a ripple effect.

The underlying story is in the increasing collaboration between traditional labor unions and far left organizations such the DSA.

Labor union Dissident groups are nothing new but have been growing not just in numbers but effectiveness, other groups like Teamsters for a democratic union (TDU), The New Directions Movement (NDM) and Soldiers of Solidarity (SOS) with the UAW members have existed for decades.

These and other dissident and socialist organizations were at one time declared enemies of union leadership but now are being accepted and even courted by national leaders as they face a more aggressive rank and file membership. One example is current Teamsters President Sean O’Brien who at one time was an old guard supporter of Jimmy Hoffa Jr., In 2013, O'Brien was suspended for two weeks for threatening members of the Teamsters for a Democratic Union who were opposing one of his allies, the history with TDU and local and national leaders has been a violent one, O’Brian is now working with TDU and was even a keynote speaker at another dissident labor organization, Labor Notes.

The growth of Worker Centers and truly independent unions have grown expeditiously, the independent unions have rejected the traditional top-down power structure but affiliation with an established union is the natural trajectory of an independent union campaign, for example the Starbucks workers united is actually “Workers United” affiliated with the SEIU union, in fact the Workers United union is a succession of different union merges going back to 1900.

While unions are now increasingly evolving as socialist allies, socialists have also historically criticized unions for being reformist—focused on improving capitalism rather than overthrowing it.

Socialist organizations and unions are increasingly intertwined, and their interactions are influencing how unions organize, campaign, and strategize, understanding evolving union tactics is essential in maintaining a productive union free environment.

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Recently Gallup reported that seventy-one percent of Americans now approve of labor unions, slightly higher to last year's 68%, this is the highest approval since the 1950s, when 73–75% approved;

Nearly half of Americans (47%) want labor unions in the U.S. to have more influence than they do today, a record high in the past quarter century and roughly double the 23% who want unions to have less influence. Another 26% want unions’ influence to remain the same.

The union win rate in NLRB RC (representation-certification) elections was approximately 78% during the first half of calendar year 2026. This was nearly unchanged from the comparable 2025 period. In Q1 alone, the reported rate was 77.5%.

I have also read articles on why the results of these stats should be minimized rather than taken as an important window into the views and emotions of employees and potential organizing targets across the country.

There are many reasons why workers seek out unions and many reasons why the union election win rate is high, too many for more than an overview on this format.

In 2025, there was verry insightful survey done by the law firm Littler Mendelson P.C. about management’s preparedness gap to confront labor union organizing activities.
They identified vulnerabilities for U.S. companies that are not well prepared to manage union-organizing activities based on evidence of a “preparedness gap based on surveys of nearly 800 in-house attorneys, human resources professionals”.

But today’s workforce can be complicated, and I can attest from my former days as national union official that unions follow these trends on a national level.

According to a survey done by the American Psychological Association, “Job insecurity is having a significant impact on a majority of U.S. workers’ (54%) stress levels, according to APA’s 2025 Work in America™ survey. As workers contend with changes in government policy and growing economic uncertainty”

Job security is one of the biggest reasons that workers seek union representation. Workers often experience job insecurity when they doubt the stability, value, or future of their roles. This insecurity can stem from a mix of external, organizational, and personal factors.

One important finding in the APA survey is that workers who were satisfied with their relationship with their manager were less likely to describe their work experience as toxic (10% vs. 55% of workers unsatisfied with their relationship). These workers were also less likely to report concerns about losing their job due to an economic slump (43% vs. 52%) and to say things felt uncertain at their job right now (31% vs. 66%).

This data and common-sense leads to the logical conclusion that employees are more likely to prosper when they have a sense of community at work, Positive, collaborative, and professional relationships will create a productive non-union environment.

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Workers at a Corning solar manufacturing plant in Michigan voted September 1 to join the Steelworkers (USW). The vote was a close 560-512, following an intense anti-union campaign by the company. Nakisha West, a wirecutter, voted yes for “fairness and accountability.” She and her co-workers use scorching heat and precision-cutting tools to turn polysilicon crystals, or boules, into slim squares, known as wafers, for solar panels. “It’s a very dirty job, but somebody’s gotta do it,” she said.

Read the full article at: labornotes.org

The International Brotherhood of Teamsters and the U.S. Department of Justice have jointly filed a motion to end federal oversight of the union after nearly 37 years of monitoring, marking the longest such monitorship in U.S. history.

The current oversight stems from a 1988 civil racketeering lawsuit brought by then-U.S. Attorney Rudy Giuliani, which alleged that organized crime had run the Teamsters as a racketeering enterprise for decades Reuters. In 1989, a consent decree was reached, requiring a court-appointed monitor to oversee internal affairs, changes to the union’s election process to ensure fairness, creation of a review board to investigate corruption allegations.

The consent order was established in 1989 when the IBT settled this lawsuit filed after years of corruption and mob influence. It was replaced in 2015 with the final order which established the current anti-corruption program consisting of the Independent Review Officer and the Independent Investigations Officer.

As part of the original consent order, Teamsters for a Democratic Union (TDU) fought for and won the right to vote for International Union officers and Convention Delegates under democratic rules with an independent election supervisor. These rights are now written in the Teamsters Constitution and will continue without change.

Under the joint motion filed, Judge Barbara Jones, the Independent Review Officer, will continue to play an oversight role for another three years with an option to extend if she believes the IBT has not sufficiently maintained its disciplinary and audit systems at the end of that term.

An interesting fact is that TDU has had a volatile history with Sean O’Brien and as a result O’Brian was suspended for two weeks in 2013 after an Independent Review Board found out he had violated union rules by threatening TDU members during a Rhode Island election rally.

There is also a concern within the labor movement that Teamsters for the Democratic Unions support for O’Brien has aligned the union with far-right politics, With the TDU annual convention approaching, some TDU members and reform groups, such as Teamsters Mobilize, report they have been banned from attending TDU conventions, citing political alignment with O’Brien and Trump CounterPunch.org. Critics say TDU has abandoned its reformist image, instead elevating its own members into leadership roles while O’Brien steers the union toward nationalist politics.

Politics within the labor movement are fierce and union officials they will eat their own the minute they see any challenge to their authority including rank-and-file members.

https://pslabor.com/

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Will AI be the cause of the next boom in Union Organizing? There are some significant reasons that can't be ignored when planning a union awareness and avoidance strategy especially if AI is affecting the employees feeling of job security.

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The UAW Local 2093 at the Three Rivers plan will be in a tough position getting their contract objectives met with American Axle and with a 98 percent could end up in a protracted strike, unlike the Big Three automakers which have a national contract for all UAW members at each automaker, supplier companies like AAM negotiate separate contracts with their own local union representatives, each plant or facility has its own UAW local that negotiates directly with management for that site which greatly reduces bargaining leverage for the union.

The UAW did attempt to improve their bargaining leverage with a Coordinated strike vote with both American Axle in Three Rivers and the Stellantis’ Sterling Heights Ram 1500 plant which is having outsourcing issues with Stellantis.

The near-simultaneous strike authorization votes at American Axle and the Stellantis facility pointed to a coordinated UAW approach to leverage pressure across multiple employers. By aligning timelines, the union would have increased bargaining power and signal a preparedness to escalate actions if demands were not met at both companies.

Immediately, the votes would have heightened tensions at both plants and accelerated negotiations. In the short term, a strike at Sterling Heights could have halted the Ram 1500 production, affecting dealer inventories and local suppliers, while American Axle stoppages would have damaged GM’s supply chain. Long term, outcomes could have set precedents for wage restoration, outsourcing limits, and future contract enforcement in the auto industry, strikes are designed to cause maximum damage to the company’s ability to operate and profit, successful strikes which extract concessions from management are also the unions best sales pitch for potential new organizing members.

Unfortunately for the AAM UAW local, this lifeline was severed when the Stellantis Sterling Heights facility, which employs roughly 6,000 union workers, resolved the grievances tied to outsourced skilled trades work, resolving these issues lead the UAW to cancel the strike vote.

More potential strikes are on the horizon this year, the contract covering 20,000 Verizon workers in 25,000 Steelworkers at Cleveland Cliffs and US Steel mills have contracts expiring on September, In October, contracts will expire for 17,000 Boeing engineers and techs, June, about 14,000 UFCW members at Kroger in Michigan, 6000 University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Graduate Employees, and many more.

Strikes can be devastating to companies and workers lives but can be avoided, Unions are not going away, and companies don’t have the luxury to ignore union activity, well trained supervision who understands union tactics and how to spot union activity along with a comprehensive communication policy are vital to maintaining a productive union free environment.

https://pslabor.com/

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Want to know why the unions come knocking? It usually isn't the big concerns but more than likely would be from a series of smaller concerns that build up layers like a giant onion. You have to peel the layers back to see the real reasons and they are usually easy to address in the early stages.

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There are many important reasons companies oppose union organizing campaigns, including increases in operating cost, they also have an impact on productivity and productivity growth.

Studies have shown negative impacts of unionization on both output per hour and on productivity growth. The Clark Institute found productivity losses between 3.0 and 4.0 percent based on an analysis of company level data for 902 manufacturing businesses over a twenty-year period.

The Hirsch group (2004) found negative total productivity effects of 2.0 to 4.4 percent depending on the union density in the company, the lower end of 2.0 percent productivity loss estimated by the Hirsch group for a company with only 10% union density would reduce profits by 19.8 percent. Even small production losses can have a major impact on a company’s financial performance. In ten years, the unionized company’s profit per labor hour will be 23.6 percent less than the non-union company before accounting for the effects of compensation cost premiums or initial productivity differences.

The cumulative effects of slower productivity growth on top of the initial differences in compensation result after 10 years in the unionized company, significantly lagging the non-union competitor in profit by 37.4 percent.

The Council on Union-Free Environment study of reviewing the actual case analysis of confidential companies determined a higher liability of 30%-40%. Unionization of an employee making $10/hr., the cost would increase $8290/yr.

It also creates an erosion of management flexibility and control, collective bargaining agreements transfer significant decision-making authority away from management, reducing the speed at which a company can adapt to market changes. Disciplinary action, becomes a multi-step process subject to grievance procedures and arbitration, replacing managerial judgment with a formalized, legalistic process.

A company’s ability to implement new technologies or restructure job duties is diminished, requiring mandatory negotiation before changes take effect. This process causes delays that can span months or years, disadvantaging the unionized company.

Given these reasons and more, it doesn’t make sense that many companies don’t put more emphasis on staying union free before union activity ever takes place, the initial goal of a union organizer is to find weaknesses in the management structure and leverage it against the company.

First, management needs to treat workers fairly, and I cannot emphasize enough for management teams to build trust, mutual respect and open communication, to utilize emotional intelligence to win over employee’s trust and engrain them in the solution to the labor crisis/union campaign or high turnover problems, getting to this level of understanding and motivating through emotional intelligence requires the opening of your senses, by talking less and listening more.

https://pslabor.com/

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I was saddened and very surprised to read the allegations that Cesar Chaves sexually assaulted multiple women when they were teenagers participating in the labor rights movement.

Labor movement Icon Dolores Huerta who was one of the co-founders of the National Farm Workers Association, now known as the United Farm Workers (UFW) with Chaves, she also alleged that Chavez raped her in 1966, according to reports. She claimed Chavez fathered two of her children, who were raised by others after Huerta hid both pregnancies.

When I was a union official, I had the opportunity several times to sit down and discuss her role in forming the UFW and the obstacles they faced during that time.

Cesars brother, Richard Chavez is credited with building the UFW into a major California agricultural and political organization, when I was a national organizing director I had an alliance with the farm workers and I got to know Richard Chaves very well and even had him headline big regional organizing events when a large Latino population were involved, he talked at length about his older brother and gave me an historic view of the organization and the people involved.

Now some are calling for Huerta's name to replace Chavez's on the plethora of government buildings, schools, monuments and streets that bear his name across the country.

With so many unions covering up their corrupt behavior it was refreshing to read that the UFW canceled participation in celebrations of Cesar Chavez amid these “troubling allegations”

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Getting hit with an RC petition is a stressful time for the management, especially if they are caught by surprise. Many times, the first impulse is to hit the floor and talk with the workers to find out what the hell is going on or respond out of anger.

When I was a national organizing director I once had an owner of a company send out a memo to all of his employees stating that he knew the names of the internal organizers who were responsible and that he would punish them, many ULP charges later the owner was successful in intimidating his employees into voting the union out. I filed an objection to the results of the election, and the company was eventually hit by a bargaining order.

It’s vital to remain calm in these times, get skilled legal counsel and adhere to the important TIPS Bob Carroll is providing. In the case that I am describing above the company owner didn’t hire legal counsel until he was hit by our first Unfair Labor Practice charge was filed.

https://pslabor.com/

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Communication breakdown is the biggest cause of union activity, but many issues happen in-between the breakdown and an RC petition, an erosion of confidence in management’s leadership to support their workforce.

Effective communication is not just going through the motions of having conversations with your employees, effective communication is to truly listen to them, strategic empathy, follow up, it doesn’t mean that you have to agree with everything they say or solve every problem, but they need to feel that they were listened too, treated fairly and respected.

The good news is that there is usually time for course correction if you commit to truly engaging with your workforce!

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According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the percentage of U.S. workers who belong to a union has steadily declined over the last several decades, from about 20% in 1983 to just 10% in 2025, In the private sector, but it’s important to look deeper at the numbers and what industries are targeted to understand how the unions are evolving.

The labor movement has transformed dramatically since its origins in the 19th century, adapting to industrialization, technological change, and shifting political landscapes and as the labor movement continues to evolve, unions face new challenges. The changing dynamics of the workforce, including the rise of gig and freelance work.

Technology has transformed nearly every aspect of modern life, and labor relations are no exception. The infusion of technology into the workplace has had profound implications for labor unions, some have a negative impact for unions, for example automation has led to a decline of the workforce in their core membership base but technology has also provided unions with new tools for organizing and mobilizing members. Social media platforms, for instance, have enabled unions to reach a broader audience and engage with workers in real-time. Campaigns can be designed to go viral, rallying support for labor causes and increasing visibility for union activities. Additionally, online platforms allow unions to conduct virtual meetings, making it easier for members to participate regardless of their location, which makes organizing more cost efficient without the need for renting out as many meeting spaces or bringing in organizers to house call voters.

The labor movement has always been divided on organizing strategies, many in the labor movement are calling for Taking on Big Targets saying that union density can’t grow without it, the proportion of union elections has increased in customer-facing industries such as social services, digital media, retail and wholesale, and business, professional, and personal services.

The biggest private sector union wins in recent years have been in graduate student units in private universities such as Columbia, MIT, and Cornell.

Unions such as IFPTE and OPEIU have set up new nonprofit divisions, focused on organizing advocacy organizations and grant-funded institutions such as museums. Small independent unions, such as the Campaign Workers Guild and United Campaign Workers, have targeted political campaign staff.

Unions are trying to engage a multigenerational workforce that differ in how they approach work/life balance, career growth, loyalty, authority, and other issues that affect successful union organizing activity.

Understanding union tactics and what drives workers to reach out to unions along with having a consistent, positive and inclusive employee outreach policy is vital to maintaining a productive union free environment at your facility.

https://lnkd.in/dAH-nP7W

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